


The Heretics

by Bonymaloney



Series: Fighting It At Every Turn [6]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Blood and Violence, Canonical Character Death, Corporal Punishment, Emergency Medical Technicians, F/M, Fallbrook, Fantasizing, Flogging, Max gets what he thinks he wants, Medical Trauma, Now with bonus fan art!, OC backstory, is disappointed, unsurprisingly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:41:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22378891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonymaloney/pseuds/Bonymaloney
Summary: Max would play their game, would let them re-educate him, but he’d carry the truth within him like a bitter ember. He knew to be more careful now, not to trust those whose minds were too small to comprehend his ideas. And when his chance appeared, he would seize it. Understanding, enlightenment, his name underlined in the Plan. Peace.Pride in a job well done was axiomatic; it was the reward from the Architect for fulfilling your purpose. So if Pearl had fulfilled her purpose, then how come it felt so fucking awful?
Relationships: The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto, ish - Relationship
Series: Fighting It At Every Turn [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629799
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

“... by the Void you fucking halfwits, put me _down_!” 

It took four of the guards to get Max off his feet, and there was pride in that, hard and shining like new armour against what was to come. Max was a vessel for the Plan, destined to be the man who solved the Equation and brought Scientism’s peace to the universe, and anyone who tried to mess with him deserved everything they got. And though he should walk through the valley of Debt he would fear no evil, for - 

“Shut up!” A blow to the back of his head temporarily knocked the wind out of him, and the cowards took their chance. His shirt was ripped from his body, and solid steel cuffs latched around his wrists. He roared wordless with anger and frustration, and one of the guards shoved a thick rubber wedge into his mouth. Max spat it out scornfully, and with a twinge of disgust. 

The guard still beside him picked it up, wiped it clean, and then pushed it against his lips once again. 

“Sorry, Vicar,” he said in a tone that wasn’t quite apologetic, but did seem to contain enough respect for the title of his office that it gave Max pause. He felt a sting at the inside of his elbow, as the man injected him with adrenatime. “If you pass out I get marked down on my performance review.”

The stimulants flooded his system, mingling with the adrenaline lingering from battle. Max could feel his face flushing bright and sweaty, the cords in his neck straining. His heart felt like it might space itself right out of his chest, crossing him off in a glorious gory explosion and _fuck_ the guard’s performance review. 

The guard tapped away on the terminal at the side of the room, and there was a whirring of gears and gyros behind him. Max’ eyes widened in indignant rage - they were going to have him flogged by a fucking mechanical! He grit his teeth and worked his jaw, trying to spit the wedge out again so he could tell them exactly what he thought about that, when 

crack

The sound hit him first, deafeningly loud, and sparks flared behind his eyes. His entire body tensed until he thought his muscles might snap, and then he felt the white-hot stripe searing down his back and _black fucking holes_ it hurt!

crack

The second blow landed agonisingly close to the second, neatly, pedantically parallel. Max felt hot tears in his eyes, and he furiously blinked them back. He could _fight this_ , he was Maximillian, the way the Architect had made him, he just needed to

crack

but there was no one to fucking fight, no one was even looking at him. Just a bare room, a bored guard and a mindless fucking automechanical arm. His head was fuzzy and his knees were weak. Defenceless, helpless - no. He just needed to catch his breath, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t brea

crack

It was worse than fire, it was plasma, it was acid. It was falling and scraping your shin across the rocks, skin torn away right down to the bone, and the look on

crack

Max let himself slump, the burning ache as his shoulders took his weight a sweet relief from the agony in his back. Something was dripping down him, sweat or blood or both. He could smell iron - had they broken his skin? Would they risk infection, death, injury to the point of being unable to work?

He laughed bitterly. Of course they would. Inmates were hardly in short supply, there was always a surplus of unfortunates straying from their Path. He just had to get through it, slow and deepen his breathing, clear his head. His back felt like a supernova but he could handle that, he could make a plan, he could…

The whirring behind him changed pitch, and there was movement in the corner of his eye. 

crack

The blow landed at a 90-degree angle to the previous ones, cutting across the burning grooves with a pain so all consuming that Max couldn’t help himself. He screamed. 

crack

He was blind with sweat and tears as his punishment was etched into him. 

crack

Stars and galaxies danced in front of him, and he let himself fall gratefully forward towards the void between them. The infinitely cold, blissfully uncaring universe, welcoming him in, if he could only reach

crack

Fuck the fucking adrenatime 

crack

fuck 

Two of them to drag him this time, one under each arm. They placed him on a gurney, face down, thank the Grand Architect for small mercies, because he couldn’t move by himself. He was weak and filthy, and his chest heaved heavy, liquid sobs of humiliation and pain. His palms were bleeding where his fingernails had dug in. The medic came to dress his wounds, another fucking automechanical, and he snarled. He swung his fist, pathetic and flailing, and more by luck than judgement he struck it on the side of its sensor array. 

It was a weak blow, producing little more than a soft clank and grazed knuckles, but Max bared his teeth in bitter triumph. The machine ignored him. 

A coat of salve, a layer of cloth pressed to his back, and then he was wheeled through to the Pit and dumped onto a mattress. Then began the longest, hardest meditation of Max’s life. Even breathing hurt. He was cold, but the thought of the rough dirty blanket against his back was horrifying, as was the thought of moving to retrieve it. 

At some point he was touched by revelation, and an understanding came to him, crystalline in its simplicity. If he were to die, he would die nameless and forgotten. Not even worthy of being snapped back to his place in the Plan; just crossed off altogether. But if he survived... 

Max forced himself to breathe deep and steady through the pain, and he placed himself in the hands of the Architect in a way he’d rarely ever truly managed. 

He didn’t think he slept, but by the time the lights rose for the start of day cycle, he felt strangely refreshed. His parents and his teachers; the Bishop he’d gone to with his ideas, so full of excitement, so convinced he was going to bring all of humanity one step closer to the Grand Equation - and that man was a fucking coward, hadn’t even had the balls to tell Max there and then, he’d had him taken from his bed later that night - them and the fucking shit-for-brains whose stupid aptitude test had made him a labourer. They were all wrong. 

He would play their game, would let them re-educate him, but he’d carry the truth within him like a bitter ember. He knew to be more careful now, not to trust those whose minds were too small to comprehend his ideas. And when his chance appeared, he would seize it. Understanding, enlightenment, his name underlined in the Plan. Peace.


	2. Chapter 2

When Pearl applied for Halcyon, she gave the most random and disjointed answers she could think of on her test. She was heading down a brand new path, and she wanted it to be _new_. When her results came back, she was pleased - she was a connoisseur of diners and 24 hour coffee joints, and frycook was a noble profession. Pride in your work for a job well done was something she’d been missing. 

No matter whether it was an accident, an assault or an industrial incident, there was always the same feel in the air when you arrived at a scene. You didn’t look in your bag, that was a newbie thing to do, but you ran through a quick checklist in your mind. Then there was always a lot of waiting around - Auntie had invested time and money into her training, and She needed to be sure that sending Her resources into a dangerous situation was a worthwhile investment. Once the negotiations between the corporations involved were concluded, the head of watch would give the signal and it was go time. Moving among the wounded; triaging those who deserved treatment and those whose part in the Plan had come to an end.

She’d been picking her way through the smoke and debris across the Rizzo’s manufactory floor, leading one of the deserving behind her. The woman wasn’t badly injured, and after the wound on her hand was treated, she was going to get in the shuttle and transfer to another site to finish her shift. They couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen feet from the exit when it happened; a piece of wall mounted equipment, no longer wall mounted. The woman was trapped beneath it, and she wasn’t even screaming, just staring up at Pearl with her eyes and mouth wide. 

The machine looked heavy, but Pearl was strong, she could probably lift it. But the woman’s leg was crushed - if she moved it, she might bleed to death. Pearl could go out and find the rest of her team, but the collapse had fanned the flames behind them and it was already hot to approach. So she could at least ease her fellow worker’s passing; Auntie wouldn’t miss one vial…

There was another loud crash and sudden rush of burning air swept all her choices away. The woman was swallowed by black smoke and embers, and Pearl stood frozen until someone grabbed her by her pack and dragged her free of the building into the cold winter sunlight. 

At the diner afterwards she bought grits and coffee - decaf, it was almost morning - like normal, but the warmth of her food and the desperate banter of her crewmates passed her by, leaving no more impression than a sudden rush of air. Externally calm, her thoughts were furious and inescapable. 

If the woman was destined to die, then Pearl attempting to save her would have been futile. But she hadn’t even attempted. She’d been frozen by indecision, the way you drilled over and over to try and avoid. And if it was part of the Plan for the woman to die, then how could it have depended on someone else - on Pearl - failing at her job? Pride in a job well done was axiomatic; it was the reward from the Architect for fulfilling your purpose. So if she’d fulfilled her purpose, then how come it felt so fucking _awful_. 

She would have liked to talk to a Vicar, but they kept respectable hours. Her joy in her work began to fade, and she noted with vague interest that it was taking more whiskey to bring her less sleep at the end of each shift. The Halcyon programme seemed like the answer to all her prayers. At best, it would prove to be the opportunity the posters promised; at worst, more of the same but in a whole new galaxy. Her new path might be an escape route, but it was OSI-sanctified and Directorate-approved. 

Landing in Emerald Vale she’d found her path was in fact churned up and destroyed. In her struggle to escape her landing pod, she dashed her head against the frame of the hatch, and if that wasn’t a sign then what would be? Her nose was streaming with blood as she stumbled into Edgewater. Faced with a town full of Law-abiding workers and their administrator, caring and sincere like a boss out of a morality serial, and the leader of a bunch of deserters and heretics, the choice should have been obvious. But the man was so blinded by ideology that he refused to even believe in the existence of the fucking flu. How could there be anything more scientifical than a virus? So she chose, and she wasn’t instantly snapped back into place. The experience was terrifying, and liberating. 

Pearl consciously shed the last vestiges of her religion as she took flight aboard the Unreliable, leaving a cold and dark Edgewater behind her. And in a twist of irony, the Universe finally provided her with a Vicar to talk to. 

In idle daydreams before leaving Earth, she’d let herself fantasise about serving out her contract and then setting herself up in frontier medicine; splinting bones and delivering babies in return for half a cystypig and a share of the harvest. Monarch seemed like it had the potential for that in spades, and she was only partly deterred by Nyoka’s descriptions of life after the corporations left. Although she respected that the hunter’s views came from experience, to Pearl’s mind it seemed there ought to be a way for people to have both freedom and toilets. 

She snorted to herself. As a revolutionary slogan, it didn’t have much of a ring to it. Although she was sure Felix could be persuaded to spray paint it on a wall somewhere. 

But fact was, Nyoka had a spark about her, and so did Zora, and most of the people of Monarch. Even Sanjar, although his was a weird, bureaucratic sort of a spark. Maybe it had something to do with the way that they’d chosen; chosen to defy the Board and stay behind. Monarch might be a shithole full of acid pools and giant insects, but it was _their_ shithole. They were determined to make something of it, even if none of them could agree on what that something ought to be. 

She mused as she strolled the boardwalk and took in Fallbrook. Visually, she had to admit, the place was awesome, carved into the side of a mountain and strung with lights like a pirate cave. It was the perfect image to lure young Byzantines who felt like being rebellious, funnel their money into Sublight’s coffers, vent their desire for nonconformity and return them safely to the Board. Strip away the seedy glamour, and what you were left with was just seedy. Still, the Something in their Rum’n’Something had a real kick to it; she would give them that. And the string lights were pretty. 

Ellie and Felix were off tracking down four legged drug couriers. It was a task with the right level of absurdity and adventure to it that Felix had agreed right away; and she trusted Ellie to make sure the crew came out ahead at the end of it. Meanwhile, Nyoka had taken Parvati on a guided tour of the plant life of Monarch. The young engineer loved flowers, and Nyoka had been adamant that some of them were non-lethal. 

Which left Max, and Pearl hated the fact she was pleased. She valued Nyoka’s advice on dangerous wildlife, Ellie’s insights into the politics of the space pirate clans. Laws, Parvati was practically her conscience at this point. But when it came to Max…

...it was his eyes. When she shared her thoughts with him his eyes would light up the way they did when he saw something new and interesting that he might pick apart. He would turn it over in his mind and then give his opinion. Intelligent and insightful and often wilfully hypocritical; always delivered with pure conviction. Sometimes, the sheer fact that he hated an idea was all the comfort she needed to know it was the right one. She loved the fierce look on him when he was contemplating a problem, as though daring it to yield before his might. The way his hands moved when he talked. The broadness of his shoulders and the softness of his belly hiding muscle beneath, the lean powerful limbs that drove his hard fists forwards. 

In the past, Pearl had encountered men who took her strength as an affront. They seemed angered by the fact they were attracted to her. They would try and degrade her to reassert their own masculinity, and they would get short shrift and their asses kicked. And the creepy fetish guys were almost worse.

Almost.

But what she felt from Max was genuine appreciation. He liked to get rough the way she did, he was skilled with his fingers and his tongue, and he had some very interesting vices of his own. He looked good spread out beneath her, grinning all challenging and eager. The man had a _very_ nice dick.

Now _there_ was a plan for the rest of the evening. Pearl downed her drink and made her way towards the house where she’d last seen the Vicar. She would wait until Max had concluded his business with the translator, then she’d pick a fight and pick his brains about Monarch. They could test the strength of the bed in the suite she’d taken; open the windows so their bodies were lit up by all those pretty lights. Then she’d send out for some dinner. 

Fallbrook seemed a weird place to find a translator, but presumably the man handled valuable corporate IP as well as old religious books. If he was willing to work with material that would get you in trouble with the Board, then Fallbrook made as much sense for him as a base of operations as anywhere else. However, when she reached the scholar’s house she found it empty; with doors hanging loose and drawers turned out onto the floor. She felt herself tense. Max’s pursuit of heretical knowledge had also been enough to get him in trouble; and maybe he’d been caught up in some sort of raid. She hurried onward, scanning the area for any signs of what took place. 

Pearl recognised that old familiar feel in the body language of the bystanders, and she moved towards it. As she ran closer, feet trailing through the water, she heard grunts and pained cries, and focussed, furious swearing. There was a campfire burning, filling the evening air with the scent of smoke and burnt sugar. Max was a being of pure rage, his face frozen in a sneer of triumph. Blood dripped from his fists, spattered across his body. His chest was heaving, his hair matted with sweat. A shape lay at his feet, barely recognisable as a man. 

“Max! What the fuck?”

“This is the guy who told me about the book in prison! I lied about finding a scholar; I don’t care about any of that any more.” Max’s eyes were shining and his grin was dark. 

A lot of things suddenly clicked into place. 

“You came all this way for - what - revenge? Maybe he didn’t know it was in French!”

“He knew it was _in-fucking-French_!” He punctuated his words by kicking the man at his feet. It sounded like chopping steak. Max liked violence, she knew that; and she thought she’d seen the worst he could do. She was wrong. 

“So you’re just giving everything up?”

“I’m not giving it up, Captain; I’m embracing it! I thought my training had allowed me to leave this part of me behind, but prison brought it all raging back. It’s time I accepted who I am.” 

Pearl felt a wave of emotion sweeping through her, and was surprised to realise that it was second-hand embarrassment. 

“Don’t feel fucking sorry for yourself - this wasn’t you losing your temper, spur-of-the-moment. You’ve been planning this for months, haven’t you? And you - oh for fucks _sake_!”

Chaney’s broken limbs were jerking, his head rolling unnaturally loose across his shoulders. His eyes were swollen shut, and blood soaked through his facial hair. He inhaled it with gurgling breaths. The injuries would likely be untreatable, even in the most exclusive hospitals on Earth. On Monarch, he’d be lucky if he suffocated before the wildlife got to him. 

“Finish the job, _Vicar_ ,” she snarled. The bloodlust began to fade a little from Max’s eyes, and he looked rather surprised. “Finish the job, or I’m not having you back on my ship.”

She heard his shotgun erupt as she turned and left him behind her.


	3. Chapter 3

Max’s tread was heavier than it had been in weeks as he climbed the gangway to the Unreliable. That trancelike state where all he knew was his pulse in his ears, the heat in his muscles and the blissful emptiness in his head was over. There was a painful tension in his chest, his body taut and wary. If the journal had been real, hadn’t been in French - fucking _French_! - then he might be on his way to Understanding by now. Instead, Pearl had denied him even the temporary relief that came through violence, by rubbing his nose in it like she was training a fucking canid. 

He made for the stairs, but Pearl blocked his way, shoved him wordlessly towards the hold. He opened his mouth to speak and she swung for him, his teeth clacking together as a spark flared behind his left eye 

“That’s for lying to me from the start. Way back in Edgewater - you were so desperate to leave, but you didn’t lift a finger to help me get that power regulator. Wanted to keep your hands clean, in case I fucked it up; so you could go back to your Mission and pretend like it had nothing to do with you.”

He worked his jaw side to side with a nod of appreciation for her technique. The truth was as harsh and straightforward as the pain, and he welcomed them both. 

“I deserve that. I don’t regret what I did to Chaney, but I regret ever lying to you. I was seeking passage aboard your ship when you knew nothing about me; and I thought you’d be more likely to trust a pilgrim than a killer. And after that... ”

After that, the crew had accepted him as their Vicar. A judgemental man, determined to achieve Verity no matter what the cost; but also a man who listened to the tossball games and the aetherwave serials, and played cards, and always had their backs in a fight. And Max couldn’t possibly tell them the truth after that, because he was astonished to find that he liked being that man. 

As for Pearl… it was a long time since he’d been able to pretend that she was simply the Captain. He still tried it, but he knew he was lying to himself. He risked his life for her on frivolous errands, relishing her approval and her smile. Worse, instead of Scripture or alcohol, he found himself taking comfort in her presence. She would soothe him or else provoke him until he was spent. Either way, it was intoxicating. Max had no words for it, and he had no words for what had happened next, either. 

Because then they’d arrived in Fallbrook and he’d had no choice. His only chance of knowing peace was gone, and Chaney had to pay. 

Pearl was watching him, unyielding, and he found he couldn’t look away. The intensity on her face, the sorrow and the anger was breathtaking. 

“...after that, after a while... part of me always thought you knew,” he finished lamely.

“I figured out pretty soon you weren’t telling the truth... honestly? I thought maybe he was your ex.”

Max was so astonished he laughed; and that angered her all over again. He’d heard her scream and sigh his name, but now when she said it, it sounded like a curse.

“Know what the worst part is, Max? If you’d spent half as much effort looking for a real translator as you did stalking some ex-con, you might have actually found one. I don’t think you really want to know what’s in the book. You just needed an excuse for why all your study hasn’t gotten you anywhere.”

“That’s not true!” Her eyes never left his, damn her; she was looking to hurt him and by the triumphant narrowing she knew she’d succeeded. Sorrow and rage welled up in him. He’d wasted his whole life trying to understand the Law that ordered the Universe, when all along he was destined to violence and chaos. He would be forever at the mercy of his stupid fucking temper. And she was mocking him for it. 

“You beat that man to death after he did you a favour, giving you a book you can’t read.”

“Don’t pretend this is about fucking Chaney,” he snarled back at her. His philosophy had always been that attack was the best form of defence. “He’s a worthless piece of filth and he stole years of my life from me! The only thing that’s gone right for me was getting onto this ship, and I only managed that because I lied to you; and that’s why you’re so angry!” She flinched, and sick triumph flared in his gut. 

“You’re right, it is,” she said quietly. “It was stupid of me to trust you. None of this means anything to you, you’ve been out for yourself all along, and I should just leave you here. But you lied to me about your book, and now the only person who knew anything about it is dead. So you’re not as smart as you think you are, Maximillian.”

She turned to leave, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her close, so that she had no choice but to face him. In another context it could have been foreplay; but he only wanted to study her face as intently as he’d ever studied the Law; trying to understand. 

“Why don’t you? Why don’t you just leave me in Fallbrook?”

“With what? A handful of bits and,” she glared appraisingly at his belt, “about four shotgun shells. Are you gonna set up a mission and preach? Drink yourself to death? Get caught with your banned book and shipped back to Tartarus?” She wrenched her hand free and shoved him back. “Because I’m not a fucking sadist is why. If you want, you can cash out your share and jump ship back at Groundbreaker. If that’s what you want.”

“He told me the book came from Scylla,” he called after her, but she made no sign she’d heard him as she swept out of the hold. Max felt shame and relief warring inside him, leaving him so clenched he thought his teeth might break. He was suddenly aware of the pain in his knuckles, bruised and torn; but he punched the bulkhead anyway.


	4. Bonus fanart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr user Kourumi drew this! It’s the first time anyone ever made fan art of something I wrote and I was so excited and honoured. Thank you!


End file.
